The Book Sill: Defiant Pose

Defiant Pose by Stewart Home

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



A highly commendable book for the Christmas season



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The Book Sill: Uncommon Danger

Uncommon Danger by Eric Ambler

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The plot is not quite as clerverly built as The Mask of Dimitrios. It feels at times as if Ambler rushed the writing: easy dialogues, inconsistencies in character building, laughable plot tricks. If this book was only a spy thriller, it would not be a very good one. But Ambler writes about history and politics. He writes about intelligence between the two world wars. He does so with a depth of sight, a precision in the details and a shrewdness which make the reading of this old spy novel a delight.



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The Book Sill: Le Cocommuniste

Le Cocommuniste by Jacques Jouet

My rating: 5 of 5 stars







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The Book Sill: 14

14 by Jean Echenoz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Echenoz's lightness and wonderful irony lets the terrifying background of World War One dominate this short novel. A joy to read, as always. If only Echenoz could write a new book every month...



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The Book Sill: Le Sens de ma vie

Le Sens de ma vie by Romain Gary

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Highly entertaining series of interviews conducted few months before the writer killed himself, and revealing a whole life shaped by fiction.
From an early age, Romain Gary will try to conform to the life his mother had imagined for him, that in spite of being born Russian he would become a famous French writer and diplomat. He will lie to her, hiding his failure to become an officer in the French air force. She will lie to him, hiding her own death for three whole years ! He will lie to the whole world and to himself, during his years as the French speaker for the United Nations. He will lie to the publishing world by winning the Prix Goncourt under a false name.
Romain Gary reveals these lies all along these short interviews, in the exact opposite attempt of Cendrars's tetralogy: use his talents as a writer to de-mystify his own life.



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The Book Sill: Situations Delicates

Situations Delicates by Serge Joncour

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I was looking for a lazy Sunday book. I found a lazy Sunday book. Situations Delicates shows why, of all the talents to participate in Les Papous Dans la Tete, Serge Joncour is the most entertaining one. Light, ferocious and self deprecating, Joncour made me laugh in 154 pages of everyday situations more than Wodehouse in 600 - and Wodehouse does make me laugh. in other words, this was the perfect little book to see me through 2 days of football world cup finals.



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The Book Sill: La Bible Steampunk

La Bible Steampunk by Jeff VanderMeer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Merci Bragelonne pour ce magnifique livre, superbement edite et qui m'a fourni une nouvelle liste de lectures a venir s'empiler bientot sur ma table de nuit ! Si certains sujets meriteraient d'etre creuses davantage (mais il s'agit d'un dictionnaire, non d'un essai), ceci est amplement compense par les illustrations somptueuses, dont certaines ont -presque- reussi a me reconcilier avec la mode.

The Steampunk Bible - buy it, read it, give it around you and let's organise a fancy-dress night !



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The Book Sill: Paris Avant l'Histoire

Paris Avant l'Histoire by Elie Berthet

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Very interesting reading to more than one respect: as an illustration, for instance, of how ideology constantly messes up with science, but also with history. Particularly interesting is the last story, and the way it was ingested and transformed by Goscinny when he started writing the first Asterix.



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The Book Sill - Chourmo

Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Chourmo is one of these novels I had always promised myself to read, because it was held is such high regards by people whose opinion I trust.

Las ! The context might grasp the interest of any reader familiar with or fascinated by this graal of all cities that is Marseille. But as for the novel, I can barely see anything good to say. Political comments ooze from the author in every scene - not that Izzo has his heart in the wrong place ; more that he has his pen in the wrong hand, if not in the wrong limb. The style is full of teenage pathos without ever reaching the beautiful rough poetry that a James Lee Burke, a writer with an equal tendency towards whingeing, achieves. The situations are often predictable and the characters lacking the depth or idiosyncrasy that would make them attaching to me. As a social mirror, Chourmo is far from any of Georges Simenon's novels. As a pure noir novel, it is nowhere near any of Manchette's stories.



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The Book Sill - Aurélia et autres textes autobiographiques

Aurélia et autres textes autobiographiques by Gérard de Nerval

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Four stars only for the confusing succession of notices and notes, sliced and spread out throughout the book. I would have preferred to have them held in one place - but other, less easily distracted readers will not find it an issue. This collection of works is indispensable for whoever is interested in the rising of the subject at the centre of our societies in the XIXth century. It links beautifully Rousseau and Chateaubriand to Proust and Cendrars.



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